Geoff McDonald, Head of HR Marketing, Communications and Sustainability, & Santiago Gowland, Head of Sustainabilty & Brands, Unilever

Two billion people in half the world’s households across 180 countries use Unilever products every day. “We can change the world by what you buy in the supermarket”, believes Santiago Gowland, Head of Sustainability and Brands. He has helped pioneer the multinational’s strategy of embedding positive social and environmental impact in the heart of Unilever’s brands. Santiago will share Unilever’s journey from mere CSR compliance to its current aspiration to drive systemic change in its marketplaces. Geoff will talk about the competitive advantage he gets from Unilever’s brand strategy in his recruitment and retention of top talent.

Emmanuel Marchant, CEO, Danone Communities

Danone Communities is a Mutual Fund which invests in food businesses that have a significant social impact reflecting Group Danone’s Mission of bringing health through food to millions of people. Their globally renowned partnership in Bangladesh with Nobel Prize winning social entrepreneur Muhammad Yunus is perhaps the world’s most talked about example of how a large multi-national has leveraged its core competencies to create a business that can deliver both a social and financial return.

Peter Todbjerg Hansen, Managing Director, Grundfos LIFELINK

With 17,000 employees in 45 countries, Grundfos is one of the world’s leading pump manufacturers. In LIFELINK it has created a unique business model that combines mobile phone technology, microfinance and Grundfos’s systems to enable people in Base of the Pyramid (BOP) markets to gain access to safe drinking water. The BOP marketplace is estimated to be 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 a day.

Dorje Mundle, Group Head of Corporate Citizenship, Novartis

Novartis provides healthcare solutions that address the evolving needs of patients and societies. Employing 100,000 associates worldwide, group sales for 2009 were US$44.3 billion. Novartis is committed to creating value for all patients — including those who cannot afford treatment. In 2009, the Novartis access-to-medicines programmes, valued at US$ 1.5 billion, reached 79 million patients around the world. A social business model was launched in India in 2007 which now serves 42 million people in the rural Base of the Pyramid (BOP) segment. This is being expanded to East Africa and China during 2010. This is a huge company making a huge impact.

Mike Barry, Head of Sustainable Business, Marks and Spencer

M&S has set itself the goal of becoming the most sustainable global retailer in the world by 2015. Its famous Plan A has already had a huge impact in its business and helped them save over £50m this financial year alone. Its future initiatives include engaging 10,000 farmers in its Sustainable Agriculture programme; offering all employees free loft insulation and the launch of a 5 year, £50m internal innovation fund to identify break through technologies.

Wolfgang Gregor, Chief Sustainability Officer, OSRAM

Osram - a €5bn division of Siemens - is one of the two largest lighting manufacturers in the world and the first in the world to offer a sustainable lighting solution for regions without power supply networks. Launched in 2007 their Osram Hub concept provides fishermen around Lake Victoria with access to sources of light, energy and clean drinking water in a sustainable, scale-able, profitable model. Billions of people burn kerosene for light and the market for this fuel is worth €40bn. The Osram Hub provides people with a safer, less polluting and more effective light source and offers Osram a crack at the revenues of the oil producers!

James Timpson, CEO, Timpson

With more than 900 stores nationwide including the recently acquired Max Spielman chain, Timpson is one of the most successful, admired retailers in the UK. Famed for its pioneering employment practices it has extended its ‘recruit for attitude train for skill’ ethos to the landings of Wormwood Scrubs and Liverpool Prison. Fully branded Timpson training centres offer futures to people too often written off by society.

Chris Burgess, Head of Sustainability, Vodafone

Mobile phones have changed the world by opening up new channels for the poor - and the potential is huge. Mobile networks allow grassroots farmers in India to get better prices, doctors in London to diagnose illness in people in remote African villages, and millions of unbanked people to become financially active through mobile banking platforms like Mpesa. Without mobile phones much social innovation is just not possible. Vodafone is at the forefront of this revolution.